A tall biennial, to around 1.5m high in flower, with lance-shaped, deep green leaves often with strongly wavy edges. Slender spikes of tiny yellow flowers are produced in summer. This plant can be used to produce a yellow dye

Dye colour: Yellow

Dye source: Leaves, Flowers, Seed

Flowering: June - September

Other common names: Base rockets, dyer's rocket, dyer's weld, dyer's yellow weed, wild mignonette, wild woad, yellow weed, dyer's weed, Jerusalem ash, melyn-gu

How to extract the dyes: 

• Soak the dried flower heads in a pot filled with 4 litres of warm water for 30 minutes. 

• Heat the dye bath to +70 °C, well below the boiling point.  

• Adding one tablespoon of washing soda or 0.5-1 dl of wood ash lye can improve the colour extraction and modify the colour from brown to orange. 

• Steep the flowers for 30 minutes to extract dye.  

For more information about the dyeing process:

Natural dyes for education and colour experimentation